Page 101 - Essentials of Payroll: Management and Accounting

ESSENTIALS of Payr oll: Management and Accounting
installation time. The best practices are generally clustered, in order, by
those relating to the gathering of payroll data, the processing of that
data, and finally its distribution.

Automate Fax-Back of Payroll Forms

A payroll clerk is the unofficial keeper of the payroll and human resources
forms. Employees come to this person to collect these sheets, which can
vary from a request to change a payroll deduction to a request to change
a pension deduction amount. If a company has many employees or many
locations (which necessitates mailing forms to recipients), the chore of
handing out forms can take up a large amount of staff time.

To avoid distributing forms to employees, you can set up an auto-
mated fax-back system. This best practice requires employees to contact
a computer, either using a touch-tone phone or through the computer
system, and request that the appropriate form be sent to a fax number
accessible by the employee. If the employee has computer access, he or
she can also download the form directly and either fill it out on his or
her computer or print it, fill it out, and mail it back.
Because all of the forms are digitized and stored in the computer’s
memory, it is possible to make the transmission with no human inter-

vention. For example, an employee accesses the system through a com-
puter, scrolls through a list of available forms, highlights the needed
item,enters the send-to fax number,and logs off.The form arrives a few
moments later.
Under a manual distribution system, it is common practice to issue
large quantities of forms to outlying locations, so that the payroll staff is
not constantly sending them small numbers of additional forms; the dis-

advantage of this practice is that these forms end up being used for a
long time, frequently past the date when they become obsolete. An
automated fax-back system eliminates this problem by making available

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